As we expected AMD will make custom ARM server chips for customers, much as it made custom chips for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 game consoles.

According to Sean White, an engineer at AMD, during a presentation at the Hot Chips conference in Cupertino, California, his outfit will consider customizing its 64-bit ARM server processor to meet specific customer needs as a market for the new type of servers evolves, and the company gets better visibility of usage models.

ARM chips are unproven in servers but the low-power processors have Web-hosting and cloud uses. AMD’s ARM server chips could go into dense servers and process such applications while saving power, White said.

“There are more and more of those applications that are showing up in big data centres,” White said. “They don’t want traditional high-end... database type workloads.”

AMD does seem to think that there is more mileage in providing customised chips for those who want a SOC something specific or include some unique IP. He provided the example of possibly customising I/O and ports for specific customers. AMD last year also started putting more emphasis on the custom chip business after the PC market declined. The company is already recording strong custom chip revenue thanks to the game consoles, which are shipping in the millions.

AMD also shared the technical details of its first 64-bit ARM processor called Opteron A1100, code-named Seattle, at Hot Chips. The company has already started shipping the chips to server makers for testing. The first Seattle servers are expected to ship by the end of this year or early next year. One of the first servers with the new chip could be AMD’s own SeaMicro server.

The Seattle server chip has two DDR3 and DDR4 memory channels, which is half that of the typical four memory channels in its x86 server chips. The ARM chip will have up to 4MB L2 cache, with two cores sharing 1MB. A total of 8MB of L3 cache is accessible to all eight cores.

It will give ARM processors is ECC memory, which is important in servers to correct data errors. The 32-bit ARM processors did not have ECC memory. Each Seattle CPU will support up to 128GB of memory, totaling up to 1TB for the eight CPU cores on the Opteron A1100. The 32-bit ARM chips supported only up to 4GB of memory.

The company shared a few more details including some numbers. The Seattle A-series ARM based APU has up to eight A57-based cores and up to 4MB shared L2 and 8 MB shared L3 memory. Servers love L2 and L3 memory and this is why you will find some much of it on this server part.

The platform supports up to 128GB memory per CPU and of course a multi CPU capability for Seattle is a must. The platform supports DDR3 and DDR4 memory with ECC and speeds of up to 1866MHz. Seattle is ARM SBSA (Server Base System Architecture) compatible which is a spec that is needed in the server world and since AMD has quite big presence in the server market, selling Seattle-based products should not be a problem. This is the first time in years that AMD can offer something that Intel cannot and this is a great advantage that AMD might leverage on.

Running Fedora project is also a bit deal as this is a Red Hat sponsored, community-driven Linux distribution that provides a familiar enterprise class operating environment to developers and IT administrators worldwide. It’s not hard to imagine that Seattle will support all mayor Linux distributions at launch, but AMD hasn’t said anything officially about that.

Our friends at Techreport have seen a live demo of Seattle based AMD Opteron A1100 Series processor running the entire LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP), which is something that you need from a modern webserver. AMD demonstrated a WordPress blog and serving a video and this is a big deal as some 60 million websites and blogs are powered by WordPress. (Sadly we’re not one of them. Ed)

Seattle is sampling and as AMD said many times it is on schedule to launch the latter half of the year, most likely in Q4 2014.

Seattle is the first AMD ARM based server product and it is on track to ship in the latter half of 2014. In 2015 AMD plans another Cortex A57-based product codenamed Project Skybridge, a 20nm version of the A57-based server chip. AMD is playing it safe as it takes time to launch volume production at a new node.

Since the Seattle Opteron A1100 series is AMD’s first attempt to make a 64-bit ARM product, the company decided to use the mature 28nm process rather than the much riskier 20nm. In 2015 Project Skybridge will replace Seattle 28nm cores and Project Skybridge brings 20nm silicon.

Pin compatibility with Puma+?

The interesting part is that next generation Puma+ x86 cores and Project Skybridge will be pin compatible and we expect that Puma+ also comes in 20nm process at some point in 2015.

Project Skybridge is a low power part and it will support Google’s Android operating system. We will leave the rest to your imagination. We know that phones, tables and convertibles love Android, but we won't make any predictions what might happen. At this point Project Skybridge is a 20nm A57 based 64-bit server part. AMD has not said much about consumer ARM parts. For the time being the focus is solely on server parts.

2016 brings an interesting product codenamed K12. AMD didn’t release many details, but this is a custom 64-bit ARMv8 core. The custom ARM core approach has been used by many other companies and the most notable cases are Apple with the A7 CPU, Qualcomm with its Krait cores and Nvidia with Denver.

Only servers, for now

AMD will make a custom core that is supposed to be better than the A57, that is the general idea behind building custom core. AMD is developing 64-bit ARM alongside with 64-bit next generation x86 cores, so PC and notebook lovers have nothing to fear. There will be many APUs from house of AMD to run your PCs, notebooks and hopefully some x86 tablets as well.

AMD wants to address dense server, embedded, semi-custom and ultra-low power client market. This is quite ambitious but AMD is the only player that can create solutions in x86 and ARM architecture. Intel, Qualcomm or any other companies can do one or the other, not both of them.

Both Project Skybridge and K12 will have a graphics part and HSA support making them even more attractive in server and compute markets. We will see what happens, but AMD’s server roadmap is promising and can bring AMD back some market share, and win a slice of the ARM server market in the future.

We had a chance to talk about AMD’s upcoming products with John Byrne, Chief Sales Officer, AMD. We covered a number of topics including ARM processors already announced by the company. Byrne confirmed that customers are excited about the new Seattle chip and that there is lot of interest.

John reminded us that there is more to AMD’s ARM parts than just getting a license to build an ARM based chip. There is nothing special in making an ARM instruction set chip that looks like everything else on the market.

Talent is AMD’s key ARM differentiator

AMD thinks it can differentiate its ARM parts from competing designs thanks to its decades of experience in this space. AMD believes products like Seattle has a very good chance of succeeding in the market.

First you need world-class hardware engineers developing the processor, then you need engineers who are able to provide world-class support in enabling a platforms, compilers and benchmarks. You then need Field Application Engineers (FAEs) who can support any technical demands the customers may have to ensure it is the right product for them. Oh and then you need to know the Top customers of which AMD has relationships for decades.

At the end of the day the key component is the people behind the project. Field application engineers work with customers, you need good partners, key accounts and people who maintain them and a great sales team that can bring in money and generate profitable margins for the company.

John reminded us that ARM server chip pioneer Calxeda was missing some of these components that were necessary for success. Since Intel doesn’t plan to offer ARM based servers, AMD has a great opportunity there. We also hear that customers are crying out for AMD to be more competitive in the server space as Intel is taking advantage right now by keeping profit to themselves and not their customers.

64-bit market leader

AMD sees itself as a leader in 64-bit ARM servers and everything indicates that this is a market with high growing potential (AMD believes that by 2019 it could represent 25% of the server market). With Seattle shipping in the second half of 2014, we believe this 64-bit ARM part will play a vital role in getting more business back to AMD’s server business unit. It will take time though, hence AMD does not expect to see much of a market share increase or revenues this year.

Byrne believes AMD’s transformation from a PC focused company to a more diversified organisation with more presence in alternative markets is playing out well. As you can imagine a lot has changed in the last five or six years as the Apple changed the consumer landscape with iPhones and iPads.

However, smart devices need a huge server infrastructure to unlock their potential, so the need for new, power efficient servers is greater than ever. At least some of them will be based on the ARM architecture, just like most smart devices. This is where AMD sees a big opportunity for its server business.

AMD mentioned the existence of its first ARM based server part back in December and we mentioned it here. At the time AMD did not really talk about architecture specific details such as core numbers or memory of choice, but it went public with a few details and even the commercial name of the part, Opteron A1100. AMD will sample both the new CPU and the development platform this quarter, that's Q1 2014.

Opteron A1100 will come as a quad- or eight-core A57 ARM supporting ARM's ARMv8 64-bit instruction set. It comes with up to 4 MB of shared L2 and 8 MB of shared L3 cache and configurable dual DDR3 or DDR4 memory channels with ECC. AMD surprised us by mentioning DDR4 support, but we believe that the DDR4 version comes later rather than sooner.

Servers based on Opteron A1100 parts will come with up to 4 SO-DIMM, UDIMM or RDIMMs, 8 lanes of PCI-Express Gen 3 I/O, 8 Serial ATA 3 ports and two 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports. Let us not forget the support for ARM TrustZone technology for enhanced security and crypto and data compression co-processors.

AMD mentioned that this is a 28nm manufactured part that comes as a part of development platform that includes the "Group Hug” motherboard and Opteron A1100.

The AMD Opteron A-Series development kit is packaged in a Micro-ATX form factor and it includes:

An AMD Opteron A1100 Series processor, 4 Registered DIMM slots for up to 128GB of DDR3 DRAM, PCI Express® connectors configurable as a single x8 or dual x4 ports, 8 Serial-ATA connectors, compatibility with standard power supplies, ability to be used stand-alone or mounted in standard rack-mount chassis as well as standard UEFI boot environment.

On the software side the development kit includes a Linux environment based on Fedora which provides developers with a rich set of tools and applications, standard Linux GNU tool chain, including cross-development version, platform device drivers, apache web server, MySQL database engine, and PHP scripting language for developing robust web serving applications as well as Java 7 and Java 8 versions to provide developers to work in a 64-bit ARM environment.

AMD will display the Seattle Opteron A1100 development kit as well as AMD Open CS 1.0 Server at Open Compute Summit show a show that started this week at the San Jose Convention Center.

This new server part gives AMD something that Intel doesn’t have - an ARMv8 64-bit part that might pick up quite a lot of interest due to its low power requirement, but we still have to wait and see the performance of this server part. The server fight is starting to look like Intel vs. AMD on the x86 front and Intel vs. rest of the world in other segments, where the competition has something that Intel doesn’t, the ARMv8 64-bit instruction set that might just offer a refreshing alternative.

Chip designer AMD is due to roll out its first ARM-based Opeteron server processor next year and it recently shared some details on the company blog.

Codenamed Seattle, the chip will use ARM’s 64-bit ARMv8 architecture. With Seattle, AMD hopes to repeat the success of its first 64-bit x86 Opteron parts from a decade ago. The focus is on dense server space and power efficiency. The ARMv8 architecture more than doubles the word-length compared to the previous ARMv7 instruction set. Seattle parts will feature four to eight cores, with support for up to 128GB of ECC memory, Integrated 10Gb/sec Ethernet connectivity.

Seattle is for clearly for networks, but AMD points out that it is in a unique position to ship mixed racks with 64-bit ARM chips and traditional 64-bit x86 parts. This should allow the company to leverage the power efficiency and networking prowess of Seattle with upcoming x86 Opterons that will do most of the heavy lifting.

AMD’s first foray into the ARM world is coming next year, in the form of Seattle, a microserver chip that will ship in the second half of 2014.

The chip is based on the new ARM Cortex A-57 core and it will come in eight and sixteen core flavours. It will run at 2GHz or higher. The hope is that the new ARM 64-bit core will make more powerful ARM servers a reality and these chips could grab part of the x86 dominated microserver market.

Further up the ladder AMD will launch Berlin parts in early 2014. Berlin is an x86 design based on Steamroller and some versions will ship with GCN graphics, as part of AMD’s Heterogenous System Architecture. AMD is clearly trying to leverage its GPU prowess in the server market, although we have yet to see HSA in action.

Warsaw is designed for 2P/4P servers and HPCs. It will replace the Opteron 6300 series, but it will be compatible with existing sockets for easy upgrades. It will feature 12 or 16 Piledriver cores and it’s slated for early 2014, just like Berlin.

We just hope Berlin doesn’t invade Warsaw in the meantime. (And that Seattle doesn’t start dating Courtney Love, or blow its brains out with a shotgun. Ed)

It seems that two companies are going in different directions with the announcement that Warner Bros. Seattle underwent some layoffs, while at the same time Microsoft will open a new development studio in London.

The Warner Bros. studio in Seattle was responsible most recently for Gotham City Imposters and Guardians of Middle-Earth. Warner is spinning it as a staff reduction due to shifting business imperative, which made the decision necessary. Sources tell us that 60 employees were affected by the decision, and this is the second round of layoffs to hit the Seattle studio. The studio is currently working on Lord of the Rings: Guardians of Middle Earth.

Microsoft will strengthen its studio lineup in the UK with the announcement that they will be opening a new development studio in London. The new London studio will join other Microsoft studios in the UK such as Rare and Lionhead.

According to reports, the new Microsoft London studio will be focused on free-to-play titles and the micro transactions areas of the Xbox platform. The official Microsoft comment is that the new studio will be developing successful new programs and services for current and future Xbox customers.

Opening a new studio in the UK will likely be a good one for Microsoft, as the company will have a large and talented pool of resources from which to hire due to all of the studios in the UK that have been closed over the past year or so.

While Microsoft spins the latest studio closing as a consolidation of workspace, Pioneer Studios (that was based in downtown Seattle) has been closed. Most of the employees from Pioneer have been moved to other locations, but many of them still continue to work as a team.

While many may not know much about Pioneer Studios, the studio was formed by J. Allard while he was quarterbacking things at the Entertainment and Devices division at Microsoft. The studio was unique in the fact that it featured a very special customized workspace that was designed by SkB Architects to create an environment for innovation. Pioneer is most known for the canceled Courier project and the Metro Interface, but they have worked on many other things, as well.

Microsoft has had created special groups within the company many times in the past to act as idea or concept incubation teams. These teams are normally tasked with ideas they work with toward proof of concept. While most of these are not talked about much, we have heard of FUSE Labs, The Garage, Startup Business Group, and, of course, the famous Microsoft Hardware Incubation Lab. While we can’t tell you all that these groups and teams have been responsible for, it certainly shows Microsoft’s ability to think outside the box to foster innovation.

Sony Online Entertainment has eliminated 205 jobs with its decision to close studios in Denver, Seattle, and Tucson. SOE claims that it is, “…a strategic decision to reduce costs and streamline its global workforce.”

As part of the decision SOE will be canceling the delayed cross-platform MMO under development in Seattle that was called “The Agency.” SOE says the decision to cancel “The Agency” will allow the company to focus development resources on the delivery of two new MMO titles that are based on the PlanetSide and EverQuest franchises.

Projects that were in progress at the Denver and Tucson locations will be moved over to the San Diego HQ. The decision to better align the company’s resources will position SOE to remain a global leader in online gaming and continue to service players.